New Call of Duty due late 2011

This week, Activision Blizzard released their earnings for Q3 2010 - announcing that things were "better than expected", with the company seeing a $51 million quarterly profit.

In a message sent to investors, Bobby Kotick - CEO of the company - was understandably a bit chuffed, explaining that the growth was due to their "leadership" in online entertainment, and mentioning Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and StarCraft II as being big reasons behind the result.

"For the nine months ending September 30, 2010, our digital offerings contributed close to half of our total non-GAAP net revenues and our digital revenues have increased more than 15% over the prior year.

Most importantly, we continue to deliver some of the world's best games."

"We will launch a new first-person action title during the back half of 2011."

It took the company's Chief Operating Officer Thomas Tippl to bring confirmation:

"Next year's Call of Duty will be a first-person shooter."

No official titles have been mentioned yet, but the general consensus is that it's probably Modern Warfare 3, which is the "next big project" rumoured to still be in development at Infinity Ward, despite the drama that hit the studios earlier this year that saw more than 35 staff members leave in protest following the firing of the developer's founders.

Then again, it might not be.

We do know that next year's release will not be the other Call of Duty game that's been bandied about - the one that's in development at Sledgehammer Games. Activision were originally mumbling something about the game taking the series into the third-person action/adventure genre, but later job listings have suggested it could have first-person elements.

So - the sky is blue, bears like to hang out in the woods, and there's more than one new Call of Duty game on the way. Who knew?